Page 148 of Priest and his Anarchist

Until she shot him.

Kinda think he still got the last laugh after hearing what he did with her after that though.

The sting from the needle stops. I don’t even realize we’d been going at it for two hours until I glance up at the clock.

“I like this one.” With a brush of the wet wipe, her voice cuts through my trance.

“Mmm…”

She doesn’t answer, and I push up from the couch, reaching for my cigarette pack and tapping it on my thigh. She busiesherself with packing up. I don’t need to be able to see the new one on my back since I trust her every time.

“I need to know if you think what you did was wrong?”

I hate that she wants me to answer this differently. That every single person wants a different answer, when truthfully, “No.”

The smile she’d clearly worked so hard to force there slips from her face. She looks back down to the tattoo gun.

“Mom, I’m not Dad. I don’t have compassion. I don’t do things on a whim or out of emotion. If I do it, I’ve thought about every single scenario surrounding it before going through. I don’t have regrets, and I sure as fuck don’t care about killing someone. There’s no redemption for me, and that’s final.”

“You loved her, Priest.” It’s a whisper, but she meant it to be louder.

I don’t correct her. “Even if that were true, I’m not him. Love won’t save me.”

She sighs, closing her case and placing it on her thigh. Her knuckles graze my cheek when she stands directly in front of me. There’s a part of me that wishes I could be the son she wanted me to be. The son she deserves to have.

“I love you, son. Always.”

She leaves, and it’s not until the front door closes that I realize I didn’t say it back. Have I ever? Have I ever told my mother that I love her? Because I do. I expect her to know. I’ve always expected her to know.

Before I realize it, my feet carry me to the front door. I swing it open, the prickling adrenaline of mania cursing through my veins. In five rounds, gunshots fire out around me. Less than a second later, my Glock is in my hand and I’m unloading my clip toward the driver’s window of the beaming headlights.

“Priest!” The scream that leaves Mom sends a shrill down my spine as tires squeal off in the distance, taking her cries with them.

Moose rushes through the front door, shoving me backward but it only gives me easy access to my keys. I shove him out of the way, the door to my Skyline isn’t even closed when I fire it up and floor it down my driveway. I don’t see anyone or anything. Not the spill of people that dive away for cover as I redline down the cobblestone path.

The twists and turns as I pass every tree only quicken my pulse. It’s not until I see those fucking headlights that everything else dissolves around me.

My phone blares in the background, but I can’t. I can’t see anything but my mom and the shots that were fired.Had one hit her?

I hit the bottom of my driveway and swing it around onto Elite Boulevard. The screaming roar of the RB engine flatlining when I hit every corner.

Nothing.

Not a single fucking thing.

My phone rings again, and this time I hit the answer button.

“Your house. Now.”

“Dad—”

“Priest.”

“Fuck!” I slam the palm of my hand against the button to hang up, swinging the ass end of my car around and flooring it back up the driveway. Everything plays on repeat.

My mother.

The fresh ink on my back.

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